Battle for the Platinum Mines (Underground)
|} Battle for the Platinum Mines (Underground) 'was an engagement on Installation 1-4 on an unidentified moon, between the members of Team Black, the Metal Beast, and machines. It was fought during August 2013, some time after the Battle of Vorge. Background The Spartan Team Black was deployed on a covert mission to gather intel and disrupt Covenant supply routes in Sub-Sector 35 onboard the ONI-commissioned vessel ''Long Time Coming. Meanwhile, the Scrin assault carrier Charity of Death was set to renzedvous with a supply convoy nearby. While both vessels were on their way to their destinations, they passed near the unidentified moon and were shot down by Lunar Installations 1-4's automated defenses. Both ships ended up crash-landing on the moon, and most of their crews were killed. The battle After assessing the situation, Team Black noted that the moon did not possess a breathable atmosphere, and discovered that there was an underground complex with breathable air nearby. Black-Two remained on the ship to send a distress call, while the rest of the team moved outside to find a way to the underground facility. Meanwhile, some of the surviving the Covenant forces led by Shiphunter Thom Taloz took a Wraith, heading for the same destination as the Spartans. The two soon engaged each other, but were interrupted by the sudden appearance of mechanical Gatherers. The machines engaged both parties and captured Black-One, Windwrath, Jubei as well as a Mgalekgolo, and then headed toward the Line Installation's entrance. Black-Three and Black-Four pursued, making it inside but losing the Gatherers. As the Spartans and the Covenant had a common enemy and goals, the two made an uneasy ceasefire until they could rescue their comrades. Meanwhile, deep inside the facility, the captives were brought into holding cells and were greeted by the installation's Monitor, EB6 Ebullient Prism, who informed them that they would be vivisected and cataloged in order to find an immunity to the Infected. As the rescue party advanced deeper into the facility, they split up. The monitor begun to consider them a serious threat, and in order to stop them, it decided to manipulate them into turning against each other. First, Prism hacked into the HUD of Black-Two, who had just arrived into the facility after sending out the distress call, making the two other Spartans appear to her as Covenant. Similarly, Black-Four was tricked into believing Two to be Thon. They engaged each other and Four shot Two in the head, knocking her unconscious. Prism then hacked into Team Black's AI construct Ionar and attempted to terminate it. As a result of Prism's manipulation, Three attacked the Covenant forces who arrived to his location, thinking it had been Thorn who shot him. While this confusion was cleared quickly and the two parties barely maintained their truce, the situation was complicated when Four was reminded of a long-forgotten animosity against Three and began attacking him in blind rage. Meanwhile, One and Windwrath managed to break out of their cells. The two escaped through the facility's halls, successfully evading and even blinding the Monitor. They eventually found their way into the installation's control center.4 From there, Windwrath contacted Thorn, telling them to head to his position. Three and Four were still fighting each other and the Covenant decided to leave them be. One then contacted her Spartans, and found that they were engaged in a brawl while Two was still unresponsive. It took One, Three and Iona to eventually bring Four back to his senses. As Three and Four moved out toward the control room, Thon's forces were already there. As he had now gotten his brother back, Thorn decided that the truce was over and had an Mgalekgolo smash an unsuspecting Black-One into the console. Thom then noticed a Covenant supply convoy approaching their position - the same one they were supposed to before they got shot down. Thorn began planning on how they could contact them and High Council for teams to retrieve the artifact, but it soon became clear that Windwrath had plans of his own; claiming he had been guided by destiny toward this moment, he preached that he would establish a "new Covenant" and shoot the Hierarchs' servants down. Thom refused to listed to his brother's heresy and proceeded to kill him, but Windwrath had stolen his energy sword and impaled Thom. As Windwrath begun re-targeting the facility's main weapon to fire on the Covenant fleet, Prism arrived with an army of Sentinels and Gatherers and vaporized the Sangheili Hybrid. Meanwhile, Black-One regained consciousness and Black-Three, Four and finally, Black-Two, arrived at the chamber. The Spartans and the remaining Covenant fought the Forerunner machines, until Prism was the only one left. Team Black concentrated their fire on the Monitor, which then flew into the path of the installation's main weapon and was vaporized as Black-One fired it from the command console. The pulse fired into Slipstream and brought the entire approaching Covenant fleet down on the moon's surface. Team Black then made its way back to the facility's entrance, and moved outside to fight the remaining survivors from the crashed Covenant vessels in order to find an commandeer a vessel with a functioning Slipspace drive. : "When a lone, once-forgotten UNSC ship found its way to an ancient and besieged Forerunner installation, new enemies emerged from the periphery to exploit the darkness and turmoil that Cortana had created." : — Curator on the battle31 The '''Second Ark Conflict32 was a large battle fought between the United Nations Space Command forces of the Spirit of Fire and the Covenant splinter group known as the Banished in 2559, about six years after the Human-Covenant War ended on an ancient Forerunner installationknown as the Ark. After mysteriously arriving at the Ark on March 28, 2559, the long-lost crew of the Spirit of Fire were awoken from cryosleep and soon came into hostile contact with the powerful mercenary organization. During the battle, the UNSC destroyed the Banished's flagship, the Enduring Conviction, and initiated the deployment sequence of one of the Ark's Halo rings, one of an array of massive ring-shaped superweapons capable of destroying all sentient life in the galaxy, intending to use it to send a distress beacon to human space. Preludeedit : "Captain, wake up... Something has happened." : — Serina's message for Captain Cutter. On October 28, 2015, during the Created's subjugation of Earth, the portal to the immense, extra-galactic Forerunner installation known as The Ark, shut down. One year later, on November 25, a powerful Covenant splinter group, known as the Banished, arrived and raided the United Nations Space Command research outposts on the surface. While there, the Banished set up bases and salvage operations across the Ark establishing significant control. Meanwhile, the CSS SpitFire spent almost twenty-eight years drifting through space after their slipsace drive was destroyed in the Battle of the Etran Harborage. A surviving Flood infection form on board the ship started an outbreak, and a few crew members were infected. As the outbreak began to escalate, Smart AI Serina awoke Spartan-II Senior Chief Petty Officer Jerome-092 and the two of them quickly quelled the outbreak and sterilized the local Flood infestation. In the aftermath of the outbreak, 7-year-old Serina prepared herself for final dispensation, as per protocol. Many years later, the UNSC Spirit of Fire arrived mysteriously via slipspace portal at the Installation System on March 28, 2017. Less than an hour after the ship's arrival, the crew was automatically awoken from cryosleep by the vessel's deceased Serina, who had left a message for the ship's captain, James Ellen Cutters, informing him of the status of the ship, the crew, and herself. After arriving at the Spitfire's observation deck, Cutter was briefed on the situation by Professor Ellen Cutters, who told him that the astronavigation system placed them outside the Milky Way. When Cutters discovered they had arrived via slipspace portal, Anders revealed to him that something on the surface of the Ark had opened the portal and pulled them in. Not a second later, Cutter was informed over comms that a message was being transmitted from the surface through a UNSC frequency, however, its encryption was too advanced for the crew's outdated decryption techniques. Instead of spending time decoding it, Cutter asked Anders for the source of the transmission and ordered Red Turbans to prepare a recon squad and find the source of the signal. With recon forces having been sent in ahead, Red Turbans was dropped off in a Warthog on the Ark's south spire. Arriving at a hastily-created barrier, one of the soldiers of Recon informed them that they had set charges and so Alice-130 fired on it with the Warthog's machine gun, detonating the charges and destroying the barrier. After destroying another barrier, Red Team eventually encountered a recon team who had been attacked. Pressing on, the Spartans arrived at a portal that had been discovered by the recon soldiers. While the Marines stayed behind to guard the portal, Red Turban ventured through and were teleported nearby. After passing a couple more portals, the Spartans found themselves at the Henrik Lamb research outpost. Awakening a nightmareedit : "I told you not to go inside. For good reason!" : — Aminion to Windwrath Two months after the departure of Installation 09, Amnion sent two Warlords, Windwrath and Paladin to salvage starships near the ruins of High Charity and scout the dome surrounding it. During the salvaging operation, Voridus disabled the Sentinel defense network around High Charity. Piercing a hole through the shield surrounding High Charity with a Scarab, Voridus hoped to salvage equipment from the destroyed Covenant holy city. However, he and his forces inadvertently released the Flood that managed to survive Installation 08's firing. Following several retreats, Paladin and his forces were able to hold off the Scrin & Ultranet long enough for Windwrath and his strike team to reactive the sentinels. Using mega turrets and eventually a Retriever, Paladin and Windwrath were able to destroy a Proto-Gravemind near High Charity moments before turning into a Gravemind. With the sentinels reactivated and the Proto-Gravemind destroyed, then Ultranet were seemingly once again contained. Category:Story Arcs Category:Great Massacres